The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for providing voice and data service interfaces to web services-based applications, and more specifically to systems and methods for providing voice service application interfaces to web services.
For years now, the Internet and the World Wide Web (the “Web”) have been used to obtain and share information with people (via browsers) on any number of topics. Now, however, with the advent of the eXtensible markup language (XML) and other dynamic Web protocols and applications, such as Java, it is now possible to share and provide applications and services on the Web. Such services are now being referred to as “web services.”
The web services movement is taking off because of the ease that applications can exchange data with XML. From a service provider's (e.g. an e-shop) point of view, if they can set-up a web site they can join the global community.
In the context of web services, the term “services” does not mean monolithic coarse-grained services like Amazon.com™, but, rather, component services that others might use to build bigger services. Microsoft's™ Passport™, for instance, offers an authentication function exported on the Web. So hypothetically, an electronic newspaper like the New York Times™ can avoid creating its own user authentication service, delegating it to Passport™.
A more formal definition of a web service may be borrowed from IBM's™ tutorial on the topic:                “Web services are a new breed of Web application. They are self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can be published, located, and invoked across the Web. Web services perform functions, which can be anything from simple requests to complicated business processes . . . Once a Web service is deployed, other applications (and other Web services) can discover and invoke the deployed service.”        
There are a number of companies and organizations active in developing web services applications. Examples of component services that are reusable building blocks include currency conversion, language translation, shipping, and claims processing, to name but a few.
With the increase in use of cellular phones and mobile computing devices, one area in which web services can be utilized is to provide a voice interface to the Internet. Because of the small nature of these mobile communications and computing devices, it many times would be easier to communicate with internet web pages using voice commands rather than using “point-and-click” actions or typing key strokes. Similarly, it would be easier to listen to commands and information from web sites, rather than trying to read truncated web pages on small mobile device screens.
Thus, what is needed is a system and method for facilitating voice communications with web site servers and pages, using for example, SALT or other web-based communications and protocols.